I'm currently a in the middle of writing one script but have been wondering something about adapting. I'm looking to adapt a book, but the first chapter has no dialog what so ever. Should I either make it a voice over for a character telling the story from the inside or make it a seperate character who would be the narrator for just the intro? If anyone wants to see a sample from the book, I would be happy to post it.

It's entirely up to you.  You don't need to make it VO.  If you look at many adapted movies, much of the internal dialog is just made external.

I agree with mcornetto.

You also have to choose what you want to adapt wisely. There is so much information in a novel, that adapting it all would lead to a Biblical sized script.

If the information is important to the story you are going to tell, then you are open to changing it a little, as long as it works within the structure of the script you are writing.

To me, this would depend on the first chapter and its relation to the rest of the story. First choice should always be telling the story visually. Think about how it would look if a voiceover weren't an option (such as a silent film). Is there any way to convey the information in this chapter purely visually? A picture's worth a thousand words and you're blasting through 24 a second on screen.

Another consideration is whether the information in this chapter could be conveyed later in the story to where if it needs to be told, there are characters available to chat about it, or even other visual elements to tell it.

One thing I've read about movie adaptations is to go through the book and select ten key scenes that capture the essence of the novel and use those as the basis for the screenplay. You can also use each chapter as an element of the story, and then determine how it would best look on screen.

Point is that the screenplay will not be a book on screen. Books are stories internalized within the characters it follows. They're psychologically driven. Movies are visual stories driven by the images they give the viewer. This is a huge reason movies tend to be so different from the novels they adapt.

That may have tangented, but I hope it was useful.

Thanks guys. I'm gonna have to decide how to do it. Maybe a reread of the first chapter should help.

You don't have to adapt it word-for-word.

Keep that in mind.


Phil